“I’m sure Mr. Alleyn will be very considerate with Mike,” he said and, behind the somewhat stylized courtesy which he was beginning to recognize as a characteristic of Lord Charles’s, Alleyn thought he heard a note of warning. Perhaps Lady Charles heard it too for she said quickly: “Yes, of course. I expect Mike will be too thrilled. Nanny, will you wake him and explain?”
Alleyn went to the door and opened it. “I don’t expect we shall be very long,” he said.
Henry laughed unpleasantly: Frid said: “When you’ve met Mike, Mr. Alleyn, you’ll realize that no one on earth could prime him with any story.”
“Don’t be an ass, Frid,” said Colin.
“What you may not realize,” said Henry suddenly, “is that Mike is a most accomplished little liar. He’ll think he’s telling the truth but if an agreeably dramatic invention occurs to him he’ll use it.”
“How old is Michael?” Alleyn asked Lady Charles.
“Eleven.”
“Eleven? A splendid age. Do you know that in the police-courts we regard small boys between the ages of ten and fifteen as ideal witnesses? They almost top the list.”
“Really?” said Henry. “And what type of witness do the experts put at the bottom of the list?”
“Oh,” said Alleyn with his politely depracting air, “young people, you know. Young people of both sexes between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six.”